FVA Frankfurt Rights 2014 by Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt

FrankFUrter

Verlagsanstalt “A solid reputation for literary Gems.“

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Frankfurt R i g h t s 2 0 1 4

frankfurter verlagsanstalt

“A solid reputation for literary Gems.“ Süddeutsche Zeitung

Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt Independent Publisher The Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt headed by Joachim Unseld, publishes the latest contemporary literary voices. Our programme has successfully provided an important forum for significant new discoveries since we started in 1994. Outstanding contemporary writers, such as Bodo Kirchhoff and Nino Haratischwili, as well as Thomas von Steinaecker, Nora Bossong, Marion Poschmann, Helmut Kuhn and Claire Beyer, have all been published by the Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt. In the past fifteen years three of our authors, - Thomas von Steinaecker, Christoph Peters and Zoë Jenny - have been awarded the Aspekte Prize, for the best literary debut in Germany. The Pollen Room, Jenny’s first novel, was translated into 27 languages and became an unprecedented literary and commercial success. In autumn 2012 – just in time for the FVA’s 25th anniversary – we published a major new novel by our well-known author Bodo Kirchhoff. Love in Broad Strokes, a great narrative panorama of marriage as a life project, was celebrated by critics and nominated for the German Book Prize. With Desire and Melancholy Kirchhoff presents us a new masterpiece in september 2014. For Nino Haratischwili’s brilliant and highly-acclaimed second novel My Gentle Twin the FVA was awarded the 2011 Hotlist Prize for Independent Publishers. The book has been translated in several languages. We are now looking forward to her new outstanding novel The Eighth Life upcoming in Fall 2014, an epochal story about a georgian family.

“With a clear profile in international and German fiction, Unseld personifies the kind of publisher who has become a rarity in his generation: one who combines a nose for literary discoveries with savvy business sense. Here, the editing is still done by the boss.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Authors List German authors J.R. Bechtle • Claire Beyer • Thilo Bock • Silvio Blatter • Britta Boerdner • Nora Bossong • Hans Christoph Buch • Marc Buhl • Eva Demski • Stephan Goetz • Dieter M. Gräf • Günter Hack • Nino Haratischwili • Ernst-Wilhelm Händler • Joachim Hammann • Christa Hein • Marc Höpfner • Zoë Jenny • Marcus Jensen • Marielouise Jurreit •Stephan Kaluza • Fee Katrin Kanzler • Matthias Karow • Tanja Kinkel • Bodo Kirchhoff • Chris Kraus • Sabine Kray • Helmut Kuhn • Heike Kühn • Thomas Kunst • Ulla Lenze • Gert Loschütz • Marcel Maas • Thomas Martini • Alfred Neven DuMont • Christoph Peters • Marion Poschmann • Minka Pradelski • Jörg Reckmann • David Schönherr • Corinna T. Sievers • Stefanie Sourlier •Thomas Strittmatter • Thomas von Steinaecker Francophone authors Geneviève Brisac • Paule Constant • Laurence Cossé • Nicolas Dickner • Marc Dugain • Tristan Garcia • Yann Queffélec • Jean-Philippe Toussaint Hispanophone autors Juan Bas • Mario Bellatin • Javier Calvo • Lucia Etxebarria • Vilma Fuentes • Quim Monzó • Sergi Pàmies • Fernando del Paso • Ana Maria del Rio • Isaac Rosa • David Trueba • Pablo Tusset • Angela Vallvey English and American authors Margaux Fragoso • Stuart Evers • Dagoberto Gilb • Ted Hughes • Sylvia Plath • Steven Sherill and Christian Frascella • Pavel Lembersky • Guðmundur Óskarsson • Margaret Mazzantini • Menis Koumandareas • Juliana Matanovic • Besnik Mustafaj • Maja Rasker

Publisher: Joachim Unseld Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt • Arndtstrasse 11 • 60325 Frankfurt am Main • Germany Tel +49 69 74 30 55 90 • Fax +49 69 74 30 55 91 literatur@frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de • www.frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de or see us at the Frankfurt Book Fair: H all 3.1. E 111

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Nino Haratischwili

AN EPOCHAL NOVEL ABOUT A GEORGIAN FAMILY, SET AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF THE 20th CENTURY.

©Danny Mery/Sollsuchstelle*

1900, Georgia:. It all starts in a little backwater on the border between Georgia and Azerbaijan, with the birth of a chocolate factory owner’s daughter. Stasia and her three sisters grow up in the upper echelons of society. She dreams of a life in Paris and a career in ballet, but at 17 she marries a White Guard soldier, Simon Jaschi, who is transferred to Moscow on the eve of the October Revolution, far away from his wife. When Stalin becomes the sole leader of the Soviet Union, Stasia and her children Kitty and Kostja seek shelter in the house of Stasia’s youngest sister Christine in Tbilissi. Whilst the socialist upper classes are able to enjoy the good life, the country’s impoverished population suffers, aggressive reforms reach their high-point. And when Stalin’s right-hand man Lawrenti Beria take notice of Chistine’s extreme beauty and unworldly manner, it has disastrous consequences …

Das achte Leben (Für Brilka)/ The Eighth Life

Novel. German. 1232 pages Published: Fall 2014 Rights held: World Rights except Georgia

About the author: Nino Haratischwili, born in Georgia in 1983, is an award-winning novelist, playwright and director. At home in two worlds, each with their own language, she has been writing in both German and Georgian since the age of twelve. In 2010 her debut “Juja” was nominated for the German Book Prize. The following year, “My Gentle Twin” won the Independent Publishers’ Hotlist Prize.

2006, Germany: After the Fall of the Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Georgia is shaken by a civil war. Niza, Stasias brilliant great-granddaughter, has broken with her family and moved to Berlin. But when her twelve-year-old niece Brilka runs away during a trip to the east, Niza finds her. In search for her own past and future, she will tell Brilka the whole story: about Stasia, affronting history in silence, about Christine, who pays dearly for her beauty, about Kitty, who looses everything and still finds a voice in London, and Kostja, controlling the family’s fate. About Kostja’s daughter Elene and her daughters Daria and Niza. And about the secret recipe for the family’s Hot Chocolate, which offers salvation and misfortune for six generations. “The Eighth Life” is an epochal novel about a family, with classical power and great wordliness, a powerfully written epos about eight exceptional lives in the vicissitudes of GeorgianRussian War and Revolution.

My Gentle Twin, Fall 2011 Rights sold to: Italy, France, Poland, Greece „German contemporary literature has a new heroine. The name Nino Haratischwili is one to remember. The author has written a book of almost classical power.” Deutschlandradio Kultur Please contact: Sina Witthöft Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt • Arndtstrasse 11 • 60325 Frankfurt am Main • Germany Tel +49 69 74 30 55 97 • Fax +49 69 74 30 55 91 witthoeft@frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de • www.frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de or see us at the Frankfurt Book Fair: H all 3.1. E 111

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“Bodo Kirchhoff is a great author, comparable to John Updike” Denis Scheck, Druckfrisch

Bodo Kirchhoff

Verlangen und Melancholie/ Desire and Melancholy

One sunny day in may, Hinrich finds a letter with a black edging in his postbox. Who may has died? Hinrich does not dare to open the envelope. Since his wife passed away nine years ago after a fall of 43 meters, he lives alone. He wallows in memories of Irene, the beloved mother of his daughter Naomi, the translator of high Italian literature. He remembers the summers in Italy, their journeys to Rome and Pompeji, where they stood still in front of the frescoes of Villa dei Misteri for hours to understand their meaning. They loved cinema, the melancholy of the monochrome pictures, but were also seduced by something light. But what has really happened nine years ago, before she fell? And what does the letter with the black edging contains? Only a journey to Warsaw brings finally enlightenment. Hinrich is catched up by the life with Irene as well as by the time with a previous mistress in a way, that inverts everything he believed in. Desire and Melancholy is charged with subtle emotionally suspense, a novel which takes the reader on a search for traces. Slowly but relentless, the protagonist discovers the truth about his wife’s death. Bodo Kirchhoff tells about a person growing older with desires staying eternally young and melancholy that turns out most helpful.

Novel. German. 448 pages Published: September 2014 Rights held: World Rights

About the author: Bodo Kirchhoff, born in 1948, divides the time between Frankfurt and at Lake Garda in Italy. He has won several prestigious literary prizes, including the Kritikerpreis für Literatur, Preis der LiteraTourNord and the Carl-Zuckmayer-Medaille of Rhineland Palatinate. His last novel Love in Broad Strokes/ Die Liebe in groben Zügen was nominated for the German Book Award 2012. “This is storytelling which is unrivaled in contemporary German literature.” Deutschlandradio “Rarely has a contemporary german novel left me in such a state of existential turmoil.” Denis Scheck, Druckfrisch Please contact: Sina Witthöft Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt • Arndtstrasse 11 • 60325 Frankfurt am Main • Germany Tel +49 69 74 30 55 97 • Fax +49 69 74 30 55 91 witthoeft@frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de • www.frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de or see us at the Frankfurt Book Fair: H all 3.1. E 111

www.frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de

The Life story of a glamorous thief

Sabine Catherine Kray

They call him „Diamond Eddie“, because jewelery and fur coats are his métier. With delicate hands, he cracks any lock, with his extraordinary intuition for the desires and aspirations of people, he‘ll sell them anything. Dressed in the finest suits, a charming and intelligent man, Edward Kray is popular at the gambling tables and bars of the city. He travels all across Europe, to France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Greece, he never makes plans, he doesn‘t put any money aside. For him, there is no tomorrow.

Diamanten Eddie/ Diamond Eddie

Novel. German. 450 pages To be published: March 2014 Rights held: World Rights ISBN 978-3-627-00203-9 About the author: In 1984, Sabine Kray was born in Göttingen. After finishing her masters degree in American Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, she decided to find out the truth about her grandfather, instead of pursuing a PhD. After several months of research in administration offices, archives and in conversations with contemporary witnesses, the untold story of an extraordinary man unfolded, while at the same time bringing to light the tragic fate of forced laborers during the Second World War. Sabine Kray lives in Berlin, where she works as an author and translator. In addition to this she is a volunteer mentor for young girls with an immigrant background. #Diamanten Eddie is her debut.

But his dreams are dark, the sinister images of the past constantly towering over him. Memories of his childhood in Zamosc, a small town in the southeast of Poland, where he was born in 1924. Memories of that first air raid that killed his family. With no one left to protect him, the sensitive boy is abducted to Nazi Germany and is forced to work in the armament industry. For the whole six years, that the war lasts, he is subjected to the terror and cruelty of the National Socialist regime, has to work day and night, frequently experiencing physical and emotional breakdown. In the labour camps, he seeks solace in the memory of his mothers voice, in chess games with other inmates of the camp and in fleeting friendships that are torn apart by the war again and again. Miraculously, he survives and in 1945, after he is freed by the allies, he begins a new life in Düsseldorf. In the destroyed city he meets Marianne, an energetic and eager young woman. Together they grasp all opportunities that post-war Germany has to offer. Between economic promise, chaos, and political reform, he becomes a successful dealer of stolen goods and a thief ... By the story of Diamanten Eddie Sabine Kray erects a lasting memorial in the honor of his grandfather. The rampant life of the jewelry thief during the time of the economic miracle, intertwines with the anguish and despair of the years of forced labour. It uncovers, layer after layer, the character of a man who stays in the country of his tormentors only to escape them over and over again.

Please contact: Sina Witthöft Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt • Arndtstrasse 11 • 60325 Frankfurt am Main • Germany Tel +49 69 74 30 55 97 • Fax +49 69 74 30 55 91 witthoeft@frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de • www.frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de or see us at the Frankfurt Book Fair: H all 3.1. E 111

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Like Günter Grass - but female, like Isabelle Allende - but German

Heike Kühn

Hartmut Alles is a reptile keeper in the Frankfurt zoo. All animals have grown dear to his heart, however, he particularly cares for snakes. One fateful December day in 1963 he learns that his wife has given birth to a daughter - instead of a son! - while he is holding a pit viper in his hands. The snake takes advantage of his inattention and puts his life in danger with its poisonous bite. At the same time his wife Milla is being told that their baby girl Tonie has been born with a snake tail coloured in black-red-gold. Is this a mere caprice of nature? Grandmother Elsbeth – guardian of the family secret - knows better and consults her sister, who lives a mysterious life in the Amazon region ...

In her thrilling novel Heike Kühn retrospects Germany during the 1960s and 70s and recounts the loss of innocence and the war trauma of a whole generation with splendid literary talent. She artfully interweaves a German family’s psychogram and the story of an exceptional girl with fantastic elements and creates a magic sphere in which the snake’s complex symbolism functions as an Ariadne´s thread.

Schlangentöchter/ Snake Daughters

Novel. German. 430 pages To be published: March 2014 Rights held: World Rights ISBN 978-3-627-00204-6 About the author: Heike Kühn was born in 1963 and studied German, film and theatre studies, philosophy and art history in Frankfurt. Since 1984 she has been working as a freelance journalist, i.a. for DIE ZEIT, Frankfurter Rundschau. She has published a range of essays and articles dealing with Israeli and Iranian film, Shoah and the Cold War. In 1990 she started the „Arnoldsheim Film Talks“, and in 2007 she worked as a lecturer at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. She is a regular judge at different international film festivals. Snake Daughters is her debut novel and will be published in spring 2014.

Tonie’s snake tail quickly burns away thanks to aunt Christine who accidently forgets a hot brick in the baby´s cradle. However, it sticks with the little girl: as a talking ghost who meddles with perverse delight and disturbs Tonie’s education. The latter comprises the handling of wild zoo animals and following her father´s Darwinian rules of life. Moreover, she is forced to endure plenty lonely hours in her parents’ locked and dark cubbyhole as a punishment. Meanwhile, her mother Milla mostly cooks and bakes and covers every familial discord up with a thick layer of cream. All family members keep their silence persistently; repressed war memories break ground elsewhere. Thus, Tonie has to find out by herself: why her father Hartmut does neither believe in God nor in human beings, why her halfsister Hannah constantly has belly aches and why her aunt Christine hides behind an impermeable wall. Grandmother Elsbeth gently guides her on a different path ...

www.frankfurter-verlagsanstalt.de

bittersweet tales by the author of the pollen room

Zoë Jenny These characters may appear fragile, but they demonstrate unexpected strength. The ground trembles beneath their feet, but they do not fall: they strike out in moments of danger, and escape their cages as soon as they feel the wind beneath their wings.

Ginza, for example, who asserts her independence by sharing a tiny flat with friends and working as a tourist guide in the vibrant, overwhelming megacity of Shangai. Or Sophie, a shy woman in her fifties, whose headstrong daughter Clarice brings her photographer boyfriend on a visit to the family’s summer cottage. It comes as a surprise when Sophie suddenly blossoms under the camera’s gaze, upsetting the family balance. Mike, a young stepfather to two girls, is quietly fighting for recognition. His wife has very clear ideas about how her daughters should be raised: she only buys organic food, and throws out any clothes made of polyester. Mike secretly takes his stepdaughters to an ice cream parlour, in a battle for life’s sweetness that he can never hope to win. In another story, young Elena, watching a black condor crane his skinny, vulnerable neck, as he struggles to fly inside his cage, is reminded of her elopement.

Spätestens morgen/ No Later than Tomorrow

Short stories. German. 128 pages Published: September 2013 Rights held: World Rights ISBN 978-3-627-00197-1 About the author: Zoë Jenny was born in Basel in 1974 and spent parts of her childhood in Greece and Ticino. Her first novel, The Pollen Room (FVA 1997), was a global bestseller and has been translated into 27 languages. Following this success, Zoë Jenny was invited to give readings and talks at schools and universities in Japan, China and the U.S. She has lived in New York, Berlin and London, and currently resides in Zurich. She has published two more novels – The Call of the Conch Shell (FVA 2000) and The Portrait (FVA 2007). This is her first short story collection.

Beneath each of Zoë Jenny’s soft sentences lie darkness and profundity, pervading them with a subtle melancholy. Fear of loss and the awareness of vulnerability resonate just below the surface, and we sense that the characters in her stories are deeply troubled - but their power should not be underestimated. Zoë Jenny captivates the reader with these haunting, bittersweet tales. “It seems as if the short story is Zoë Jenny’s ideal form of writing. Hers are immaculate stories, perfect implementations of the Hemingwayan model: the drama of a whole life concentrated in a short moment.” Literarische Welt “By being verbally economical and free of any sentiment Zoë Jenny tells of characters, mostly children, in precarious situations. In Spätestens morgen soft miniatures are created which reveal the fragility of human relationships.“ BR5 Aktuell

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Stephan Kaluza

First: you are the victim of kindapping. second: you will be well or very well treated. Third: we claim money for your release. fourth: your death is not inevitably necessary .

©Kevin Lynch

This Morning, it is Christmas Day, the world of multimillionaire Meisner seems to be all right. In his black Maybach, looking on the sparkling lake Leman, he thinks about a lost love, some building repairs and about the surgery he will have the next day - the only disruption of his routine. But when he arrives at home, he suddenly feels dizzy, to hands catch him, he smells chloroform ... When Meisner wakes up in someone else‘s cellar, he realizes that he has been kidnapped. His kidnapper, called Ronaldo, knows a lot about him - he even knows about the Black Budget of Meisner‘s enterprise. The ransom demand is absurdly high, but even more absurd is the kidnapper‘s plan for the money. Further Meisner is not the only one: 30 millionaires in 30 cellars shall ensure that the old system begins to totter ... 30 cellars is a fascinating Thriller and a highly topical parabola on the current mechanisms of the financial world, totally out of control.

30 Keller/ 30 Cellars

Novel. German. 150 pages To be Published: March 2014 Rights held: World Rights ISBN 978-3-627-00199-5 About the author: Stephan Kaluza, born in 1964, studied art and philosophy in Düsseldorf. He is a photographer, performance artist, playwright, and lecturer in stage direction at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. His work has been exhibited in museums in Berlin, Amsterdam, Jerusalem, Shanghai, Seoul, Paris and Istanbul. After Geh auf Magenta now his second novel at Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt. “Kaluza’s novel grasps reality as rapidly cutted images. By the end of the book main character Bastien has found his one, very special moment of togetherness and of living life as an artist.“ Westdeutsche Zeitung